


tell me, am i a good man?

by hopefulundertone



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Best Friends, Drunkenness, Gen, Self-Hatred, also bc im pissed that people think foggy is just a tag-along, best friends take care of each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-25 23:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3829051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopefulundertone/pseuds/hopefulundertone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What are best friends for, if not to help you out (and occasionally knock some sense in when you're blind drunk (ha) and hating yourself)?</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell me, am i a good man?

Foggy finds him at Josie's. Matt's sitting at the farthest, darkest end of the bar, head low and hand gripping his drink like a lifeline, and Foggy wants to- (bundle him up and take him home and coddle him like a small child, smack him around the face for being so dumb, tie him to a chair so he can't go around getting beat up anymore) but Matt's a grown man, and he can (supposedly) take care of himself. So Foggy ignores the best-friend radar that's going off like a foghorn and signals Josie for a drink, sliding into the seat next to his and looking around casually. "Bit late for you to be out drinking, isn't it?"

Matt takes his time in replying, taking a long sip of his drink (whiskey? rum? whatever it is, Foggy can smell it a mile away). "I could say the same for you." His usually concise enunciation is slurred, just enough to let Foggy know he's two or three drinks away from blind drunk, ha.

"Hey, I'm just here to rescue my best friend from the agony of a hangover. Did something happen?" He takes a careful mouthful of the glass Josie hands him, unflinching as it burns his throat on the way down.

"No, not anything in particular." Foggy knows when to press and when not to, so he shuts his damn mouth and pretends to concentrate on the whiskey swilling in his glass, watching his partner carefully so that he (hopefully) doesn't drink himself under the table without Foggy noticing at least. Truth be told, Matt's the one who's better at this sort of thing, because god knows he's had too much practice with college Foggy and his "girl problems", but he does his best, waiting until the guy's downed another glass before trying again. "Sure nothing happened out there? With the, um, thing, y'know." Matt knows, and he chuckles darkly (which is something Foggy's never been able to pull off, something about his baby face just doesn't scream dark, but apparently broody Matt is simple as counting to three). "You could say that."

Immediately, he's on alert again. "Did you get hurt? Did-did anyone else get hurt? Was it Claire?" Matt's shaking his head before he even finishes, which, wow, rude, but he doesn't mind that much, and sits back, hoping his best friend will volunteer an answer. No luck, however, and they lapse back into a silence that isn't quite tense, yet just shy of comfortable.

It's only when they're (or at least Matt is, Foggy's only tipsy) a few drinks over too many and struggling to get from where the cab dropped them to where Matt's apartment is that the broody blind man (haha, alliteration, he's hilarious) finally talks. "Foggy, do you think I'm a good person?" His pronunciation is relatively shot to hell, but it's better than sober Foggy's on a bad day, so he hears it, although he can't really believe his ears when he first registers the meaning through the veil of alcohol. Matthew Michael Murdock (credits to his parents though, his name was the ultimate alliteration, Foggy thinks nonsensically), the broody man in the mask, Daredevil, the man this city needed, like some sort of red Batman, heightened senses and a hero complex, actually doubting if what he was doing was the right thing? Heroes didn't do that, unless he was really serious about taking on Batman as his role model. Foggy stares at him, and then, belatedly realising the incredulity in his look is wasted on a blind man, looks up as if asking the heavens for advice. After that, wasting absolutely no time at all, he grabs Matt by the shoulders, drags him into an alley so they can't be heard by nosy peepers, and shakes him without any strength. "You've got to be kidding me, right, Murdock? You're out there every night or something, kicking the shit out of bad guys, nabbing seriously evil dudes like Fisk, punching the lights out of those dickbags who think it's okay to screw this city around for their own benefit. You save like what, five people a night or something? And then get the shit beaten out of you for your troubles." Matt opens his mouth, probably to say something colossally stupid and self-derogatory, so Foggy saves him the effort by shushing him loudly. "I'm not done with you. Listen, I worry every night you're not going to come to the office the next morning, but that's because you're out there, slapping up some knucklehead and serving justice, dude! As a lawyer, I can fully approve that."

"But I hurt people, and I fuck up, and more people get hurt. I hurt you when I didn't tell you, and I hurt Claire, I ruined her life, I ruin so many people's lives-" Matt interrupts, and Foggy wants to punch him, because- "That's true, you do fuck up, and a lot at that, but you're only human. Sort of. We all make mistakes, but not all of us get to help people on your scale. Hell, it's like you've jumped straight out of a comic book. A blind guy who has super senses and hears people in need and helps them? Ask those people you save each night, if you're a good man. No way they wouldn't say yes. You're a hero." He stops Matt from shaking his head with a finger to the forehead, and smiles when he falls silent. He slings an arm around Matt's shoulder, guiding them both out of the alley, into his apartment building and towards the stairs leading up to his door.

-

At the foot of his stairs, Matt gives one last argument, which he whispers to his feet. Foggy's not the one with superhearing, so he has to get the guy to repeat himself, and well, he's really not surprised when Matt mumbles, "Fisk says I'm like him. That we're the same. That I use the same methods as him, and want the same things as him." To which Foggy promptly replies, "Fisk's in jail. He was put in there because he did bad things (his vocabulary's shrunk trying to avoid linking back to things Matt might've also done) and he broke the law. He's killed people, and meant to kill and hurt more, but you've stopped him. You got him caught." His partner's subdued, and Foggy isn't entirely sure he's convinced, but he looks like he's trying to convince himself, and that's good enough for now.

 

-

 

Foggy gets Matt to change at least, and examines his latest wounds, including some that reopened on their drunken adventure, but luckily, nothing's bleeding too seriously, and he's fine after a few bandages and a glass of water (Matt says he has a hidden side where he acts like the biggest mother hen around, but Foggy just cares a lot). Then he sits on the couch and puts his arm around Matt's shoulder, trying one last time to wipe the miserable look off the vigilante's face.

"Matt. Matty, listen to me. Daredevil doesn't define you, you hear? He's a part of your life now, sure, but I've known you too long, even before any of this had worked its way into your walnut of a brain, back in college, when you used to fumble to hold the door whenever someone was walking in or out. Remember that? People used to feel so guilty, a blind man holding the door for them. It was the funniest thing." It works, Matt's lips quirk upwards in a tiny smile, and Foggy's never been known to quit while he was ahead, so he carries on. "I knew you when we were still Nelson and Murdock, avocados at law. And you didn't have a bad bone in your body, and you still don't. Broody, maybe, but it really goes with the whole batman thing you've got going on." He grins as Matt takes a weak swipe at him, and carefully removes his glasses, setting them on the coffee table, and gets up. He's not that dumb, he knows how uncomfortable sleeping on the couch is for Matt (hell, it's uncomfortable for him, and he's not the one whose sense of touch all over his body is amplified), so he slings Matt's arm around his shoulder and supports him to his bedroom.

 

-

 

When Matt wakes up in the morning, comfortable in bed instead of hungover under a table at Josie's, feeling better than he had any right to, and finding aspirin and a glass of water by his bedside, he remembers what happened last night, and smiles. 

People think that Matt's only friends with Foggy out of pity, or necessity, or a mixture of both, because Foggy seems like the type of friend you didn't want hanging around you, or because Foggy's the only one who will look after the poor blind man, or any other sort of bullshit. All he knows is that he thanks god everyday for Foggy Nelson, and there are good reasons why.                   

 

**Author's Note:**

> These are actually all things I want to tell Matt Murdock but with more cuddling and holding his face between my hands.  
> title's from season 8 of doctor who, where the doctor asks clara the same question.


End file.
